They are, without exception, the finest women--the brightest, the best, and the bravest--that I know in New Orleans." The doctor resumed a cigar which lay against the edge of the chess-board, found it extinguished, and proceeded to relight it.

"Best blood of the province; good as the Grandissimes.

Blood is a great thing here, in certain odd ways," he went on.

"Very curious sometimes." He stooped to the floor where his coat had fallen, and took his handkerchief from a breast-pocket.

"At a grand mask ball about two months ago, where I had a bewilderingly fine time with those ladies, the proudest old turkey in the theater was an old fellow whose Indian blood shows in his very behavior, and yet--ha, ha! I saw that same old man, at a quadroon ball a few years ago, walk up to the handsomest, best dressed man in the house, a man with a skin whiter than his own,--a perfect gentleman as to looks and manners,--and without a word slap him in the face." "You laugh ?" asked Frowenfeld.
"Laugh?
Why shouldn't I?
The fellow had no business there.